Workfare and Infant Health

Evidence From India's Public Works Program

Amalavoyal V. Chari, Peter Glick, Edward N. Okeke, Sinduja Srinivasan

ResearchPosted on rand.org Jan 29, 2019Published in: Journal of Development Economics, Volume 138, pages 116-134 (May 2019). doi: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.12.004

This paper examines the relationship between maternal employment and infant health in the context of a large workfare program that explicitly prioritizes female participation, India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Using multiple estimation strategies including a triple difference strategy that exploits a discontinuity in program eligibility at age 18, we find that the program had negative impacts on newborn infant survival, increasing newborn mortality among women who were eligible to participate in the program.

Read More

Topics

Document Details

  • Copyright: Elsevier B.V
  • Publisher: Science Direct
  • Availability: Non-RAND
  • Year: 2019
  • Pages: 19
  • Document Number: EP-67782

Research conducted by

This publication is part of the RAND external publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.